News and Prophecy Staff

April witnessed tornados wreaking havoc in Alabama and the Carolinas.  On Sunday night, May 22, a major tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri.  The 200-mile-per-hour winds destroyed an estimated 2,000 buildings.  More than 125 people lost their lives and more than 230 people are still reported missing (Wall Street Journal Online, May 26, 2011).   The Joplin tornado was the deadliest tornado in the U.S. since 1947 (irishweatheronline.com, May 25, 2011).

The EU’s high court has ruled that homosexuals living in “civil partnerships” must experience the same pension rights as those living in heterosexual marriages (euobserver.com, May 10, 2011).  When the French Secretary of State for Health commented that homosexuals are a “high risk group” for HIV/AIDS, her statistically accurate comments resulted in calls for her resignation, noting that she was “stigmatizing” homosexuals (Lefigaro.fr, May 4, 2011).

Queen Elizabeth II recently made the first visit to Ireland by a reigning British monarch in 100 years.  Also, and in a highly unusual move, the Queen was accompanied by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

On May 10, 2011, the 2.3 million member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to allow the ordination of practicing homosexual ministers, removing the requirement that they live in “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”  (CNN.com, “Presbyterian Church U.S.A. to allow gay and lesbian clergy,” May 10, 2011).

A recent article in The Times (of London) read: “The bailouts don’t work but they do allow the EU to build up centralized power at the expense of nation states.”  The author continued, “The political motivation for tightening the debt yoke on Greece, Ireland and Portugal is even clearer.  By turning these countries into permanent debtors to the ECB [European Central Bank] and the various EU bailout funds, Brussels and Frankfurt are enormously increasing the power of centralized European institutions at the expense of nation states” (May 11, 2011).